Before Otto Porter Jr. became Big East Player of the year, he thrilled crowds at Scott County Central High School. It’s a small school, about 370 students in K through 12, tucked among the back roads and cornfields of tiny Morley, Missouri.
There is a lot of basketball history here. On a Friday afternoon, kids are shooting hoops on both ends of the gym’s court. Others lounge on the sidelines, heckling their friends. Banners for 16 boys championships, and 7 for the girls, line the wall.
Scott County Central Superintendent Alvin McFerren proudly shows off his school’s past. He stops at some large photos that boast the school’s most recent championship teams.
“Can you pick him out? He’s right there sitting down, holding the ball,” McFerren said, nodding to a photo of Otto Porter, Jr.’s 2008 team.
“Little skinny kid, right? I think then, I don’t think he was 6’8”. I’m almost sure he wasn’t,” McFerren said. “And then I saw him during the summer and boom, all of a sudden he was up here, and I’m going ‘Whoa!’”
Porter made a name for himself this year at Georgetown, leading the Hoyas to the second seed in the NCAA tournament’s South Region by averaging 16 points per game and more than seven rebounds. That performance made Porter a finalist for the John Wooden Award, the top honor in college hoops.
But back in Morley, he’s still known as Bubba, and he comes from basketball royalty. His dad, Otto Porter Sr., led the school to its first state championship in 1976, and his mother is a championship winner on the girls team. Those banners in the gym read like Otto Porter’s family tree.
Otto Porter, Sr. played college ball at Three Rivers Community College and later at Southeast Missouri State University. He says his son’s work ethic is his greatest attribute. It comes, he says, from learning fundamentals at an early age and countless hours playing basketball with his cousins, uncles and friends.
“Where he picked up a lot of his mental toughness is that he had to play against the family. Growing up in my family, playing basketball was a big thing,” the senior Porter said.
Now, his son has evolved into a do-everything forward who can shoot, handle the ball, crash the boards, pass and play defense. And he’s known for his coachability.
“Believe me, whatever I’ve told him, he’s going to go out there and he’s going to adjust it and make that change,” Otto Porter Sr. said. “And that I think is what a lot of coaches really like in him is the fact that you can tell a lot of kids to do things differently but he’s one that really takes it to heart and he will adjust and try to do that.”
When Porter grabs a rebound, he takes three or four dribbles then passes to an open man. He learned that from Ronnie Cookson, the Missouri sports Hall of Fame coach who led Scott Central’s basketball team for 25 years.
“For him to come from a small town like this, to go up and make Big East Player of the Year, that’s quite an accomplishment,” Cookson said at his seed store in Morley.
Cookson coached Otto Porter Sr. back in the 1970’s. He came out of retirement in 2006 to temporarily lead Scott County Central’s team after their coach was suspended. Otto Senior coaxed him to stay on as an assistant coach until Bubba graduated because he likes Cookson’s no-nonsense, disciplined style.
“You never had to holler at his dad, you never had to holler at Bubba,” Cookson said. “So his work ethic is good. Of course he was about 2-for-2 on three pointers his senior year. I didn’t bring him out. I figured he could work on that himself.”
And he did, nailing 41 of 96 three-point attempts this year.
Porter’s success on the court extended to the classroom. Coach Cookson’s wife, Dee, is a retired social studies teacher. She says he was class salutatorian and the history club president.
“He came to came to class wanting to learn, wanting to participate. He just was Otto,” Dee Cookson said. “It’s just hard to imagine that somebody with his abilities was just that laid back and kind, just such a good kid.”
Porter may only have one chance at an NCAA championship. If he chooses to go pro after his sophomore year, experts predict the well-rounded player from Morley, Missouri could be a top ten pick in the NBA draft.